just a drop of water in an endless sea
by mcfuz
Summary: After everything, Cas disappears. (Again, Dean thinks, but it hurts too much to say out loud.) / Dean, Cas and five years of waiting. Vaguely future fic. Angst.


After everything, Cas disappears. (_Again, _Dean thinks, but it hurts too much to say out loud.) He and Sam head back to the bunker and try to pretend things are alright. (They aren't. Cas is the ghost in the corner of the room; the stars pulsing in the sky when Dean ventures onto the roof; the layers of dust undisturbed in the unused rooms.)

They're hunting again. Just small cases, at first. Nothing too far out of their way. It feels good to have a gun back in his hands, and to know that when he fires it, what he's aiming for will probably die. It feels normal. (Though even the hotel rooms seem empty, the two single beds occupied but the chair in the corner always, always bare.)

Charlie comes back a few months later, full of adventures and Dean's happy for her. Really, he is. (But seeing her fingers entwined around Dorothy's is like a phantom hand constricting his windpipe. He can't breathe, and he knows exactly why.)

Sam meets someone. It's been almost a year since they last saw Cas, and Dean almost accuses his brother of being insensitive, until he realises _oh, oh, it's just me who feels this way. _(The first night Sam brings Emma home to the bunker, Dean locks himself in the bathroom and stares into the mirror until everything blurs together and he can't see a damn thing.)

And then it's not _almost_ a year, but _one whole year_, and the day passes without fanfare. (Dean spends it in his room, on his knees, hands clasped. He doesn't pray, not once, but he comes so close he can feel the words building up in his throat so insistently he gags swallowing them down.)

The next night, he fucks a girl whose name he doesn't know senseless. He leaves her flat straight afterwards, and is halfway back to the bunker before he has to pull over, jerk the door open and vomit into the bushes on the side of the road. (When Sam asks him how it went, he lies his goddamn ass off.)

One year turns into two, then two and a half, then three. Dean loses count of the dreams he has with Cas in them: him and Cas on a dock, fishing; him and Cas sprawled beneath the summer sun; him and Cas naked under the sheets, foreheads tucked together and noses touching. His fortieth birthday comes and goes. (He's never felt so old and broken in his life.)

Sam marries Emma at the turn of the decade. Dean's best man, with the speech and everything, but he draws the line at taking the dance floor. There's only one person he can imagine waltzing with, and he hasn't seen him in over four years. (He wonders if Cas has found himself an Emma, an Amelia, a Lisa. He drowns the thought in whiskey.)

It's summer again when Sam tells Dean Emma's pregnant. The three of them are living at the bunker, but Dean takes the clue fast enough to realise his brother wants something more than angel-proofed walls and demon-sound dungeons. (Sam finds a house an hour's drive away, and Dean's smile is so wide and fake he feels as though it'll break right off.)

And then he's alone amidst all these memories, and Dean's never had panic attacks before but he gets used to them real quick. The nightmares, too. (He never realised how much it meant to him to have Sammy sleeping in the next room, but now he's gone he thinks he'll never sleep soundly again.)

Four years turns into five, and it's fast approaching six when one day there's a knock at the door. It's not Sam, because he has a key and besides, he and Emma are on vacation in Europe. Dean fingers the trigger of his gun as his other hand winds around the doorknob and pulls. (When he sees blue eyes and black hair and stubble he thinks he's dreaming again.)

He lets Cas in after a long moment – minute? Hour? Year? – has passed. They stand opposite one another, the silence heavy and thick and cloying and uncomfortable and wrong and slow and warm and real and perfect between them. Dean's finger is still on the trigger. He releases it with a breath. Cas starts, takes a step forward, and then Dean's meeting him halfway and it's a confusing clash of bones and skin and teeth and tongue but the taste of Cas is so entire, the feel of his arms so complete, Dean doesn't give a fuck. There're words they should say, apologies they should give, accusations they should yell until their throats are hoarse with unshed tears, but they can wait, everything can wait, time itself can wait because Dean's waited five years for this and he didn't even realise it and Cas is here, now, and it feels like another panic attack except this time, this time, his heart is flying and his breath is catching for all the right reasons. ("Beloved," Cas whispers into Dean's clavicle as they make love on the dining table, and Dean's pretty sure he says it right back.)

Later, there are questions. Anger and accusations. Glasses are smashed. Books are swept to the floor. Punches are dealt and there's a lot of blood. (But even later, there are apologies. Kisses and gentle, gentle sex under freshly washed sheets. Blood is washed away and bruises are stroked so tenderly the pain vanishes completely. Dean curls around Cas, Cas tucks his head under Dean's chin, and when sleep comes, the nightmares are nowhere to be found.)

They'll call Sam the next morning. He'll crow with delight and promise to fly home as soon as he can. Dean will cook Cas breakfast and bring it to him in bed. They'll make love again under the sheets, amidst the crumbs, and again in the shower, soapy hips grinding together, and again on the roof, stars raining down on them and the night breeze caressing them. Things won't be fine – they'll never be, not after five years of waiting and blame and guilt – but they'll be close, and that's as much as Dean, as Dean and Cas, as Dean&Cas can hope for.

* * *

**Author's Note:** SO listening to Kansas' _Dust in the Wind _and BAM. Hit so hard with Destiel feels it was like being run over by a train. So yeah. This happened. Not even sure what "this" really is, but set some time in the miscellaneous future where all the crazy angel shit has finally finished. Vague for a reason: I suck at plot. Review?


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